SANDBACH students had plenty to celebrate on the GCSE front with the town's two schools enjoying excellent results.

Nationally everybody's been discussing boys falling behind girls in the achievement stakes, making Sandbach particularly interesting with single sex secondary schools.

Sandbach High School matched their own existing record with an outstanding 78 percent of students achieving the national benchmark figure of 5 or more A* to C grades

Sandbach School showed significant improvement in that area, gaining 63 percent.

Headteacher there, Peter Wiles, was delighted with one of the school's best performances:

"With Cheshire County data this year indicating an average of about 53 per cent for county boys," Sandbach School's 63 per cent figure confirms the commendable achievement of this year's cohort of students.

"Not only are the boys bucking the trend over that of the whole country, they are also doing so in subjects where they are often outperformed by girls.

"The modern languages results are particularly pleasing with one student, Paul Williams, being awarded one of the top five marks in French out of 73,000 candidates."

Paul picked up 6A* and 5A's along with high-flyers Christopher Bailey (10 A*, 1A) Richard Davies (9A*, 2As), Mark Smith (6A*, 4As, 1B) and William Tempest (8A*, 3A).

Sandbach High head John Leigh was equally pleased.

"We are delighted with the results which reflect the hard work and commitment of students many of whom are looking to further their education."